God of Hell - Chapter 42 - And So They Say That It Was Called The Demon Ender (Patreon)

The last thing Alfie was expecting to see in this battle was a gorilla, and yet there it was, mauling a man with its four limbs and… two horns.

“What the fuck?” He muttered and in his distraction, a man came for him only to be sent to the dirt with a slash from his steel. 

Another charged as well but hadn’t even gotten to Alfie before the red haired man shot the Crimson in the skull with what looked like a flintlock pistol. One shot dazed the man, the next dropped him on his face.

What the fuck???

A flying spear cut another man in half and a naked, bearded man in nothing but too-open robes jumped from roof to roof while throwing explosive vials of liquid onto the enemy from his pockets and cackling like a maniac.

Those last two seemed more in line with what he’d come to expect from Hell lately. 

“Erlo, put on some fucking clothes would you?!” The gunslinger yelled and the naked man only laughed louder.

The tide of the battle was shifting, just five people had jumped into it, and they had changed this from a certain, lost cause to, perhaps if they were lucky, a winnable fight.

This was Hell, this was how power was divided amongst the few who had it, and today, as he panted through burning lungs and fought through shattered Grays, he could only be thankful that the fates seemed to smile upon him just this one time.

“Are you from Nero?!” He asked the red head.

“Most certainly!” He told him before blowing another man’s head clean off.

“Where’s Selvas?!” He asked immediately.

The man’s green eyes were coated with sympathy. “Let’s just focus on the battle.”

Alfie was about to ask the man for more, but he was already charging into a crowd of Grays and shattering their plate with each roar of his pistols.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” He growled.

A man swung at him and Alfie burst his skull into several fractured pieces with a headbutt, another came and he dodged, swung his blade and caught air instead of his opponent. In the state that Alfie was, bruised, beaten and bleeding, this Crimson was faster than him.

He backed away from the man as blood poured from his cut cheek. He was still alive.

The Crimson moved to fix that and Alfie had no intentions of letting him. Both hands on his axe, he swung and missed the bastard's neck.

The strike ruined the armor, but opened him up to a counter attack. 

That blow came in the form of a stab to his neck. Alfie leaned back even though he knew he couldn’t move out of the way in time, it was hopeless, it was over.

His last thoughts were of Selvas and a hope that she was still alive.

And then he slipped on a patch of wet mud and fell out of the blade’s trajectory. The glinting steel cut the side of his forehead and Alfie pulled his opponent down with him.

They rolled in the mud, and it was clear who was the physically stronger in moments. Alfie, were he not thoroughly exhausted at least.

Instead, the pair clawed and snarled at one another like a pair of rabid dogs, rolling in the dirt, grunting and growling, speaking the language of violence and death.

The man wrapped tight hands around Alfie’s neck, blocking air and leaving him gasping. Alfie slammed his fist into the man’s throat five times. It was only on the sixth that the Crimson’s hand went limp around his throat.

Alfie would not die, not this today at least, not yet.

Cain would die today, if there was any justice in this world it would be in this battle, covered in sweat blood and guts, she would die.

But not before killing hordes of the enemy.

She swung her blade with screaming arms and it continued to drink the blood of any who ventured too close to it. She’d not bothered counting how many dead were lying around her. Enough that the still-living had to climb to climb as they attacked. 

Her eyes fell on the general, she could feel, more than hear, him roaring commands through the noise. The enemy was growing desperate now, they were not expecting reinforcements.

In truth, neither was Cain.

She couldn’t let him galvanise his troops, now while they were scared was the best time to put an end to this madness.

She dashed at the Crimson bastard and he ordered his men to converge on her. Enemies stood in her way only to be sent to the dirt by her sword.Slash, stab, kick, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!

And she did, over and over, earning nicks, cuts and gashes with every other step she took. None were enough to stop her however, and she kept going right until the General was up in front of her.

She was bleeding now, and bleeding well, it had been a while since she’d taken this much damage, her body pouring blood from more holes than she could count, her arms resisting her orders. She’d been younger the last time, too.

With weak hands, she swung. 

He caught her blade with his, she retaliated with another swing and the sword was denied its mark by a thick Crimson shield, so massive that it obscured the man who already towered over her.

Cain slashed, slashed and slashed, but only won herself thin cracks along the enemy’s shield as she flayed it.

Had she been fresh into the battle, she wouldn’t have even noticed the obstacle, but dying, the would-be triviality might spell the end of her little rampage.

She swung again and the General met her with a shield to the face. It struck her like lightning and sent Cain stumbling back. She just barely ducked an arc of death soaring over her head, winced as her joints ached and leapt back into the battle.

She stabbed and found her blade skidding past his plate. A poor connection. Shit!

His shield came again and Cain was pacing backwards before it could strike her. She was hunched over, hurried pants squeezing out of her lungs, exhausted eyes holding onto the image of the approaching bastard.

Footsteps rushed behind her and she elbowed the bastard in the face, but met a helm before bone. She turned, swung her blade at him next and the metal carved through the Gray plate like hot knife through butter.

The runesmiths of Miluina never disappoint.

She rolled out of the way of the general just in time to get a shield to her injured side where she’d hoped for an escape. It sent Cain to the floor, gasping for lost air.

A blade chased her but met the dirt instead. She rolled,  weakly tried to kick the man’s foot out from underneath him but met only his shield again.

He slashed again and Cain felt steel shear through a chunk of her ear.

She was on her knees, then her feet, then attacking again only to be denied all over. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

Why are you fighting?Do you not want to die?Do you deny retribution?On shaky legs, Cain charged at him again and that impregnable shield came at her once more. He slammed it at her and she caught it with her shoulder. Fuck! Cain hissed, the impact reverberating through her torso.

She didn’t move though, instead she used the size of the thing to hide herself from his view and stabbed her sword blindly past his shield.

She felt it sink into something and the Crimson backed away as if struck with venom. She dashed past his shield and stabbed her blade at that sweet spot of vulnerability just beneath his helm and above his neck.

From the corner of her eyes she saw his own blade coming down as well, chasing her neck and closer than hers.

Only one could meet, only one would come out alive.

Blade sank into flesh, blood erupted and limbs went slack.

A Crimson struck first, and that Crimson was Cain.

She would not pay for her crimes today.

The General slid off of her sword and fell into the dirt and Stradale was infused with morale. The air rippled with roars and cheers , the enemy was retreating, the day was won… The day was won.

“You’ve… You’ve ruined me!” Mercury roared. He’d moved the moment he saw the blast, but it was too quick, too close, for even someone as fast as him. It had struck, destroyed one eye completely and he could barely see with the other.His tentacled appendages had been burned as well and the Light Breather... The monster, the animal, held his companion in his arms now.

His helm obscured his face so Mercury couldn’t begin to guess at what the animal was thinking, he knew what he was thinking however. 

I’m going to-

-fucking kill you.

Nero was going to rip his guts out piece by piece if it was the last thing he did. He placed Selvas down gently by the tree and channelled his concern for her into his hatred for Mercury.

The Demon drew his blade and so did Nero.

He could still feel the pain from their last clash, his head pounded and his body still groaned and cried in certain places. Erlo had told him that the magic rune into Mercury’s blade was strong enough to disrupt the healing rags.

They moved together as one and their blades met with a sparking hiss. The animal snarled through melted flesh and exposed bone, Nero replied in kind.

How was he still alive?Had he moved out of the way of that?!Nero had underestimated his speed, he would not be doing that again.

Mercury’s blade came, burning with hate but lacking in swiftness. 

For the first time ever Nero dodged the nightmare’s attack.

He lit his left hand with golden fire and sent it flying at Mercury’s gut, Nero hid the trajectory through his blind spot and his fist crunched into the monster’s belly. He pushed his fist as deep as he could manage, and then let out a blast of light through the knuckles.

The bolt took Mercury off of his feet and Nero saw him catch himself on heels that dug into the earth. Nero wasn’t even sure if fusing a melee attack with a blast would work but it seemed it had.However the effect was weaker than if he had just blasted the bastard.

Mercury was hunched over, puking and desperately trying to gather his breath, when Nero shot at him again. He dodged this one, and barely managed to keep Nero’s blade from cutting his head with a well-timed swing.

The great, terrible Demon who’d kept him up for countless nights was a wounded dog compared to what Nero had known. One eye gone, the other clearly just barely working.

Good, the fact that you can even see is an error on my part.

One he intended to correct swiftly.

Nero swung over and over again, hate and Might fueling his attacks and both opening up wounds and worsening already-opened ones. 

Mercury moved his blade over and over to catch Nero, but the near-blind man could only do so much, Nero caught him with nicks first, slashes next and then stabs, cutting through scales and opening up skin.

Just like you did to me, just like you did to me!

“For Atix, for Alisan, for everyone in that tower, you fuck!” He heard himself cry, saw terror in the bastard’s eyes and felt that perhaps, just perhaps, the monster might have begun to understand just a hint of what Nero had been through. “For-”

Nero was silenced with a pummel to the jaw, shattering his helm and leaving him dazed. He stumbled and Mercury came at him before he could regain his balance, from the look in his black, blood-shot eye, he was no longer a creature fighting for some grand lofty goal, but for the simple matter of his life. And fear was a powerful motivating factor.

“I am doing what needs to be done!” Mercury roared through a hoarse throat and caught Nero with a blade to the neck.

A glancing blow, enough to spring blood but not enough to end his life.

Nero would not make that mistake.

His blade found Mercury in the chest, pierced clean through his heart and shot out the Demon’s back. 

It gasped, body seizing and then stumbling off his sword. Mercury looked for something to grab onto, found none and fell onto his back. It coughed, and black liquid sprayed outwards. Mercury’s eyes fell on him and then the monster began laughing, pained laughs, ones that sounded more like sobs than anything born from joy. “You… You really did it, didn't you…” It said.

On heavy legs, Nero began making his way to the dying animal.

“You chose one human over the fate of a town…” The Demon whispered, eyes wide with realisation and…. horror. “No… No… You will be nothing like the last, before me is something much, much worse… For Demon kind… And for Humanity.”

Nero raised his blade, brought it down. Put an end to his nightmare and felt… Nothing.